So many people watched the Good Boy trailer that it's getting a wider release

Ben Leonberg's canine-focused horror film—starring the director's own pup, Indy, as a dog trying to save his humans from evil—hits theaters October 3.

By William Hughes | August 23, 2025 | 12:41pm

Photo: Good Boy, courtesy of The Overlook Film Festival

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So many people watched the Good Boy trailer that it's getting a wider release

Earlier this week, IFC released the trailer for Good Boy, Ben Leonberg’s new horror film sporting an instantly-grabs-you premise: Watching a haunted house movie play out, not from the perspective of the doomed humans, but from the loyal dog desperate to protect his person. Buoyed by an undeniably “Who’s a sweet boy? He is!” appearance from Leonberg’s own dog Indy in the title role, the trailer is genuinely unnerving, as we watch a hero stripped of so many tools available to the typical horror protagonist face off against the unknown. In fact, the trailer has been so compelling—having already picked up more than a million views on YouTube in just four days of release—that it’s altering IFC’s release approach for the film, which will now bump the movie up from a limited release to a much wider one.

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That’s per Indiewire, quoting IFC Entertainment Group head Scott Shooman, who didn’t specify how many more screens the movie would be on, but made it clear that the online response to the film has helped change its trajectory. “We’re a bespoke company and we really pay attention to what people want to see,” Shooman said, while emphasizing that the studio (which is distributing the movie through Shudder) is really hoping people will come out for the movie’s October 3 release. (The film will eventually be on streaming, if you’re one of those people who can hold out on finding out whether the very cute Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever makes it out of this thing with a happy ending, but Shooman wouldn’t say when.)

Good Boy had good buzz surrounding it even before the trailer dropped, having won over critics at SXSW and other festivals earlier this year. (Our own Matt Schimkowitz caught the film at the Overlook Film Festival back in April, calling the 75-minute film a “technical marvel” that finds “remarkable depth” in its unique perspective.)